The VTech VM991 Safe & Sound Baby Monitor delivers sharp HD video and will record a clip when your infant moves, but its Wi-Fi connectivity is inconsistent and its audio quality could be better.

The VTech VM991 Safe & Sound ($259.95) is a hybrid baby monitor of sorts. It comes with its own 5-inch touch-screen monitor, but also offers a free mobile app so you can keep an eye on your child from anywhere on your phone. It uses a 720p camera with mechanical pan and tilt and is easy to install, but in our testing it occasionally went offline and its two-way audio was choppy at times. Our Editors' Choice, the iBaby Monitor M6S, offers more features and is a better performer all around.

Design and Features

The VM991 comes with a 5-inch color touch-screen monitor with 854-by-480-pixel resolution. It offers a decent picture for the size, though it isn't as sharp as most 5-inch phone screens.

Of course, you also get a camera. The camera is white and has a folding antenna and power and volume buttons on its top edge. It measures 4.5 by 3.7 by 3.7 inches (HWD) and has 720p resolution. On the left side are a micro USB power port, a reset button, and an audio jack. The back holds a speaker, a fold-out stand, and a microSD card slot (the monitor has 4GB of internal memory for storing snapshots and manually recorded video, but you can supplement that with an SD card).

The camera uses 10 IR LEDs to provide up to 25 feet of night vision, has a 10X digital zoom, and is equipped with a mechanical pan and tilt mechanism that gives you a range of 270 degrees horizontally and 113.5 degrees vertically. It can sit on any flat surface or be mounted on a wall or ceiling using the included mounting bracket. There's a microphone embedded in the front of the base and around back are a speaker, a 3.2-inch Wi-Fi antenna, a power jack, and an Ethernet port (for wired networking). The left side of the base has a volume rocker, two status LEDs that flash blue and orange when streaming video and pairing, a microSD card slot (for storing-motion triggered video), and an audio output. The bottom of the camera has slots for attaching it to the mounting bracket, and a reset/pairing button.

The VM911 can be set up and accessed using the 5-inch monitor or with an Android or iOS mobile device and app, but there is no way to configure it from your PC. The app opens to a home screen with the name of each installed camera (up to 10) and a small window that displays a live stream. At the bottom of the camera screen are four buttons: one takes you to a screen where you can view motion-triggered events, one takes you to a screen where you can view manually recorded video and snapshots, one lets you delete the camera, and one takes you to the camera settings.

The settings menu is where you go to configure motion sensitivity, enable Sleep Mode (which puts the camera into standby after a period of inactivity), enable continuous and motion-activated recording, and select the frequency of notifications. At the top of the screen is a plus button for adding new cameras, and another for splitting the screen into four separate windows.

Tapping a camera takes you to a larger screen with buttons on the bottom for turning the speaker on or off, enabling the microphone for two-way audio communication, manually recording video, taking a snapshot, and selecting the video quality (High, Medium, Low). There's also a button that lets you create up to four camera positions, and a button that turns night vision on and off.

Installation and Performance

Installing and configuring the VM991 is quick and easy. Once the monitor screen is fully charged, power it up and follow the on-screen instructions to connect it to your Wi-Fi to network. Once the monitor is connected it's time to pair it to the camera. Plug it in, tap the plus icon in the upper right hand corner of the monitor screen, and select your camera. Once the camera's LEDs begin flashing orange and blue, press and hold the pairing button on the bottom until you hear "ready to start pairing." Enter a security key complete the pairing process.

To monitor your child using your smartphone or tablet, download the mobile app, create an account, and verify it via an automated email. Make sure your mobile device is on the same network as the camera and the camera's blue and orange LEDs are lit, launch the app, and tap the plus icon to add the camera to your account.

The VM991 provides solid 720p daytime video with good color quality and sharp image detail, and its black-and-white night video is equally sharp. The motorized pan and tilt mechanism is relatively quiet and responsive to gestures, and the 5-inch monitor provides good color and wide viewing angles. Motion detection worked perfectly in testing, and never failed to trigger an alert to the monitor or to record a video clip, but we did not receive any alerts in the mobile app. A call to tech support confirmed that this feature is not yet enabled.

As we saw with the Philips Avent SCD860, the VTech camera would drop its Wi-Fi connections every so often despite its close proximity to the router. Whenever this happened the mobile app would take up to a minute to reconnect, although the 5-inch monitor connected immediately. Audio performance was also sketchy, as the sound would cut out periodically. Since the whole point of using a baby monitor is being able to reliably monitor your baby, these occasional gaffes are disconcerting.

Conclusions

The VTech VM991 Safe & Sound Expandable HD Video Baby Monitor provides solid 720p image quality and uses mechanical pan and tilt to give you a wide view of your child's room. It offers motion-triggered and manual video recording, comes with a 5-inch color touch-screen monitor, and you can connect to it from your mobile device when you're not at home.

Although it's easy to install and offers local video storage, it lacks a few of the baby-friendly features found on similarly priced baby monitors, such as the ability to play lullabies and monitor room temperature. More importantly, it had trouble staying connected to Wi-Fi, and its audio performance was spotty. For a full-featured baby monitor that offers free cloud storage, plays soothing music, and delivers crystal clear 1080p video, check out the iBaby Monitor M6S. It's the best smart baby monitor we've tested, and our Editors' Choice.

VTech VM991 Safe & Sound Expandable HD Video Baby Monitor

Bottom Line: The VTech VM991 Safe & Sound Baby Monitor delivers sharp HD video and will record a clip when your infant moves, but its Wi-Fi connectivity is inconsistent and its audio quality could be better.

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About the Author

As a Contributing Editor for PCMag, John Delaney has been testing and reviewing monitors, TVs, PCs, networking and smart home gear, and other assorted hardware and peripherals for almost 20 years. A 13-year veteran of PC Magazine's Labs (most recently as Director of Operations), John was responsible for the recruitment, training and management of t... See Full Bio

VTech VM991 Safe & Sound Expandable HD Video Baby M...

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